Holy Faces

Lists
are useful,
your little
helpers,

but they can
turn on you
like cornered
dragons,
breathing fire
and threatening
to consume you,
or
death-faced
ghouls
hovering over
your pillow
at 4 a.m.
reminding you
that your
slovenly habit of
“tomorrow”
never comes
and will bury you.

Or the lists
that begin with
the Coronapocalypse
and Hurricane Ida
shutting off
the electricity to
New Orleans
because of unpaid
carbon taxes
and fires wilding
through
deer and antelope
playgrounds.

It’s enough to
bring you to
your knees
at the edge
of the bridge
and tell
that angel Clarence
to take his
Wonderful Life
and shove it.

But there’s
one more list.

Faces.
Holy Faces.

Saints who
live with you
or call you
Dad
or sing
or dance
or play
for you
or dine with you
or banter
or write for you
or walk with you
or check
your groceries
or heal
your wounds.

If I move
the Holy Faces
to the top
of my lists,

at least
for today
I am saved.

(Photo Notre Dame des Oliviers; UnSplash)

 

White Socks

I read that
a “worst case
scenario” is
to wear white socks
with black dress shoes.

Which leads
to my intention
to create a
Workout for
a Man’s Soul.

It may be
that you have
spelunked
into The Mystery
and discovered
missing pieces of
your True Self
in the
Lost and Found.

But, when you
begin to
wear them,

your joy is
met with
snickers or
frowns or
other signs
of disdain
or disapproval.

I offer you
my Workout:

Start small.
Before you
display your
newfound
offbeat
authenticity,

spend a day,
or just an hour,
wearing your
white socks and
black dress shoes,

with panache
and nonchalance.

Just for practice.

 

Inhabitation

A wise man
described
the Soul
as the Interface
with
The Mystery.

The Mystery
being
the Place
from which
the Unseen
becomes

The Scene
of your
Moment-by-Moment.

I say we
can learn
the Shape
of our
Soul

and learn
to inhabit it
like
Streep or
Brando
inhabiting a
character.

Then play
every Scene,
every Moment,
every day,
as if

you are
your Soul.

(Photo by Fachry-Zella-Devandra; UnSplash)

 

Even a Child

Family camp-out
and I’m mildly
peeved
that my air mattress
leaked last night
and left
hardpan and stone
as Nature’s bedding.

Night two,
mattress repaired
and airtight,
but at midnight,
from grandsons’ tent,
cheek-by-jowl
with ours,

the five-year-old
shrieks,
terrified or angry
or both.

I confess:
Were I the parent
I may have
shamed him:

“Shush, you’re
waking everyone.”

But his wiser
mother
soothes and comforts
and
the eight-year-old
who, the day before,
announced he
was feeling
“love for everything,”
asks his
younger brother,
“Did you have
a nightmare?”
Which the youngest
somehow knows
is a cue to
laugh,
which he does,
saying,
“you have no idea,”
and giggles.

I cherish
being taught
how
even a child
shall lead them.

(Photo by Margaret Weir; UnSplash)

 

I Knew

For a few
moments,
at 8:55 p.m.,
on a
Monday night,
I knew
I had the
courage
to love
another
without fear of
losing my
Self.
And I
didn’t need
a single thing
in return.

(Photo by Elias Maurer; UnSplash)

 

A Prophecy

It has been said
there is a time
for everything.

Of course.

There are
shelves to be
built and
weeds to be
pulled and
checkbooks to be
balanced.

PTA meetings and
Girl Scouts and
family reunions.

But let me be
a prophet
and say
this:

There will
be a time
to sit and
weave a
daydream
and
Just Say No
to the
guilt of
Time Management
schemes;

a time
to pull out
that journal
you’ve been
squeezing in
between
dental appointments;

a time to
Just Say Yes
to shedding
your Persona of
the Practical

and slipping
into the
Persona of
The Painter
or the
Pie-In-the-Sky
Poet
or the
Priest of
the Divinity
of all
Creatures.

Who knows?
You may find
this to be the
most practical thing
you’ve ever done.

(Photo by Johnny Cohen; UnSplash)

 

Which Leaves Me To Wonder

I’m thinking of
throwing myself
a party.

I’d make it
a surprise party
if I could
figure out how
to do that.

A gift or two,
something
that shows
I put some
thought
into it,
something
that will
make me
exclaim,
“Oh, you
shouldn’t have.”

Of course
there would be
a card,
with watercolor
hearts
and a clever,
maybe bittersweet
way to say,
“I love you
just the way
you are,”
even though
that’s as corny
as can be.

Maybe all of
that is
nothing
but narcissistic
mirror worship.

Which
leaves me
to wonder:

Whatever did
Jesus mean
when he said,

“You should love
the other Ones
just like
you love
your Self?”

(Photo by Ali Abdul Rahman, UnSplash)

 

The Stash

I’m learning
to imagine
a little stash.

Mine has
maps of places
I have a yen
to see,

stories
I have an itch
to tell,
with oddball,
misfit
characters
I want you to
meet,

lists of
writers and
moviemakers
whose own
quirky
imaginations
I’d love to
sit down with,
on my shady
garden bench,
or my front row
sofa seat.

This stash
has a sacred
purpose:

If I am
being sucked
into the
Black Hole,
you know
the one,
where shame
or alienation
are wrestling you
into
surrender,

your Stash
can be your
lifeboat.

Trust me
on this.

(Photo by Alvaro Serrano, UnSplash)

 

Doorway

There is a
doorway.

On this side
of the door are
chore lists with
check boxes,
treadmills,
paeans to the
Puritan Work Ethic,
Codes of Conduct and
corporate
Vision Statements;
entire religions,
in fact.

On the other side
of the door are
songs that come
to the singer
in a dream,
stories that
come through
the teller
and wrap
the listener
in bearhugs of
feelings so
fierce
they contain
deaths and
resurrections,
pictures so
vivid
they rebuild
your eyes
from scratch.

Can we meet
on the other side
of that door?

I call it
The Mystery.
I’d love
to hear
what
you call it.

(Photo by Sean Thoman, UnSplash)

 

Perfect Crimson Blossoms

Imagine two
rosebushes,
planted by unseen
hands,

one in the
palace garden
of a storybook
princess,

one in a
cracked pot
on the crooked
steps of a
maidservant’s
hovel.

Each morning
the maidservant,
who loves the
princess,
places a perfect
crimson blossom
behind the
princess’ ear.

Each morning
the maidservant’s
barefoot daughter,
who loves her,
places a perfect
crimson blossom
behind her
mother’s ear.

Some of us
anxiously puzzle
whether we’re
more like
the princess or
the maidservant.

I like conjuring
the lesson of
the perfect
crimson blossoms,
and recalling that
a wise woman
said
“a rose is
a rose is
a rose.”

(Photo by Carlos Quintero, UnSplash)
(Wise Woman: Gertrude Stein)